October 9, 2008

By Mike Landry

"Sometimes it came by road, other times it came by sea."

Living in Honokaa, Hawaii Scott Yoell is surrounded by beauty. The former Windsor, Ontario research-based artist moved from Montreal to Hawaii with his wife who was originally from the islands. But even in his little paradise there’s a certain menace under all its beauty.

“Things are great,” says Yoell. “But you can’t help but look down when you’re walking on a beach and see this pile of plastic pouring out of the carcass of a baby albatross. You can’t help but be affected by that, or at least I can’t.”

Yoell’s latest series, Abstractions of a Paradigm, takes the idea of manufactured paradises as its subject. Billed as “fantastical responses to a conflicted world,” Yoell examines the darker side of humanity’s attempt to create unnatural worlds—be it television, excellence in sport or the effects of colonialism.